ねぶた、たちねぷた：Nebuta and Tachineputa (part 2)

It's snowing again in Hirosaki, so it must be time to finish reminiscing about summertime...
(Part 1 can be read here)

Night #4 - Hirosaki Neputa

After pulling the Odaiko again in the third night of the Hirosaki Neputa festival, we came back as spectators for the fourth night. All the side streets connected to Dotemachi street were closed for the parade, so spectators could sit in the intersections to watch. We pulled out the leisure sheet one more time and set up at the intersection near Asahi Bowl.

The parade starts with Hirosaki's "Miss Sakura" 

Followed closely by the Odaiko crew

Odaiko moves through the intersection, with six drummers on top

Kumamon made an appearance, showing Hirosaki's solidarity with Kumamoto after May's earthquakes there

Not all the floats are on wheels- some are carried on shoulders (or overhead if you're feeling energetic)

Monkey on the float (2016 is the Year of the Monkey)

Fierce warriors and... salamanders?

I enjoyed watching the parade almost as much as participating in it, although it was a very different experience. On the night we watched, we were in a larger group of ALTs sitting all together. We were no doubt the largest gathering of foreigners that night, probably upwards of twenty attendees, and we drew the attention of many groups marching in the parade, which was both fun and a bit awkward.

Night #5 - Jumping in Aomori City's Nebuta

Last year, I arrived in Hirosaki on August 5th and didn't have a chance to go up to Aomori City to see the Nebuta Festival there. This year I decided to go up on the night when JETs and other English teachers from around the prefecture were planning to join the parade as haneto, or dancers. In a custom particular to Aomori City's Nebuta, anyone who wears the costume of a haneto can "jump" in the parade. It costs about 5000 yen to buy a costume, or about 2500 yen to rent one for the night, so I made a reservation to rent one.  Rental includes a free dressing service- it is hard to put these costumes on yourself!

Ran into my friend Andrew at the haneto outfit rental space

Out on the street with Stefan and Alex

Our crew before the parade (Photo credit to someone who is not me...)

As for jumping in the parade- well, that was an experience. Our group of nearly 50 would-be haneto disintegrated pretty quickly as soon as we ducked under the ropes that parade organizers were using to separate the masses of haneto from the more official participants like taiko groups and the actual Nebuta floats. The typical Japanese group-behavior rule book was apparently out the window as small groups of young haneto pushed, ran, screamed and even moshed amidst the larger crowd (at least a few of the moshers were ejected from the parade by the organizers, which I appreciated a lot). It was damn hot in the jumping crowd- the atmospheric heat, combined with body heat and the heat of the spotlights and portable generators, was close to unbearable, and cooling breezes were few and brief. My feet and ankles were stomped on more than a few times, and I definitely stepped on a few strangers' toes myself.

The one Nebuta float I saw, as we rushed past looking for a group of haneto to join

The rest of the night pretty much looked like this, from the inside

I brought my camera into the parade, although it was kind of silly in retrospect. It was all but impossible to take pictures with all the movement and shoving, and somewhere in all the jumping I lost the factory lens hood, although I guess I'm glad I didn't lose the lens cap, or for that matter the lens. There wasn't much to take a picture of anyway- only the backs of the people right in front of me.

I did enjoy the experience for its uniqueness- I can certainly say I've never seen or done anything like it! I was bummed, however, to miss the floats and other aspects of the parade for the second year running. My main Aomori bucket list item is still to actually see the Aomori Nebuta parade...

Night #6 - Goshogawara Tachineputa Parade

I don't know this for a fact, but I'm pretty sure the kanji for tachi in tachineputa is written as 立, which means "stand" or "standing." This makes sense, because the neputa in Goshogawara's Tachineputa parade are about 60 feet /nearly 20 meters tall. I've been told that the power lines along the circular parade route near the station were put underground to allow these behemoth neputa to move freely. I've also been told that unlike the floats in Hirosaki and Aomori, Goshogowara's huge floats are not destroyed and remade every year, but are reused for a certain number of years and then cycled out for new ones. Which raises the question of where they keep the giant neputa for the rest of the year...

From a distance, it's hard to interpret what your eyes are telling you

Oh, right. It's a 60-foot-tall paper lantern on wheels.

Sometimes the tachineputa is stacked on top of two giant drums

This guy is a little different, battling a five-eyed scorpion monster

This hero is battling some kind of water dragon

Water dragon warrior from the back

As you may have noticed, I have little actual knowledge about the Goshogawara Tachineputa matsuri... which is how I like it, I guess. Tachineputa was the first festival I saw in Japan, about two days after arriving in Hirosaki last year, while I was still deep in jetlag. That time, I got in a ridiculously tiny car belonging to a person I knew not at all (thanks Jackson!), with two other shiny new JETs whom I had never met (hello Stefan and Alex!); was driven on country roads through the rice fields; joined a crowd of strange foreigners amidst an even larger crowd of foreign strangers; and looked up to see a 20 meter tall glowing lantern with a sword-wielding warrior sitting on a peach, made completely of paper, surrounded by drums and flutes. It was a kind of impossible moment, when I had the thought: I don't know where I am, I'm not sure if I can or should believe my eyes, I have no idea what is happening around me, but it is amazing and I think things are going to be okay.

Day #7 - The Final Day

Sunday was the seventh and final day of the Neputa and Nebuta festivals. In Hirosaki on the final day the floats are taken out of town to the area where the Hanabi Taikai was held in June, and are then set on fire. In Aomori City, the floats are taken somewhere on the bay, put into the water and set on fire. After that, there's a big fireworks show.

After a crazy week of festivals every night, and in preparation for early morning departure the next day on my way to the US, I did not attend any of the final day activities, which made me a bit sad. But I got an unexpected treat when a local school group brought their neputa right down my street. I was actually in the middle of my weekly Sunday morning videochat with my family, but when I heard the drum and flute getting closer, I ran out to the balcony to watch. I was so happy to see the little group!

Elementary school kids pulling a neputa float down my street

Drumming and playing cymbals all the way. All the neighbors came out to watch.

That's it for the summer! Up next: a three-day weekend in central Iwate Prefecture.

ねぷた：Neputa Festivals (part 1)

The first week of August is a wild time in Aomori-ken. Aomori City, Hirosaki, Hachinohe, Goshogawara, Kuroishi, and other cities around the prefecture all put on their biggest festivals of the year for the entire week, with exciting and hectic night parades, giant illuminated floats called nebuta or neputa, daytime markets, drum competitions, and a massive influx of tourists. It's impossible to see it all, but it's tempting to try!

For visitors from out of town, it must be a fleeting, ephemeral experience- one or two nights of music, parades, illuminated floats and dancing, then they hop on the train and go home. For the people living here, it's the culmination of an entire summer (or lifetime) of labor, training and preparation. Every year starting in May or June, the floats are designed and built from scratch in huge canvas tents that appear in parks and empty lots around town. Each district's float is built by neighborhood craftspeople and sponsored by local businesses and organizations. Taiko groups practice the Neputa bayashi (the drum and flute song that is unique to the Neputa festival) all year round, but as the weather gets warmer they practice outside, and sometimes I can hear the drumming from my house. There is a building of energy heading up to the actual festival week, and when August arrives it's finally time to party..!

Hirosaki Neputa: drummers playing Neputa Bayashi on the Odaiko (giant drum)

Night #1: Pulling the Odaiko (Giant Drum) in Hirosaki's Neputa Festival

Along with a few friends, I've been practicing with a local taiko group since about October of last year. The biggest event of the year for our group is pulling the Odaiko at the front of the Hirosaki Neputa parade, every night of the first week in August. Experienced drummers take turns drumming the Neputa Bayashi on the Odaiko, with six drummers actually sitting on top of the 15-foot-tall drum, and a line of drummers walking along behind it. The other members of the group take hold of the lead ropes in the front, and pull the Odaiko along the parade route and then back to the storage space afterwards.

Although I didn't do any actual drumming on the Odaiko this year (and that's fine with me!), putting on the hanten (the short jacket worn for special events) and pulling the Odaiko along with everyone else, waving to familiar faces in the crowd and seeing their excitement, was definitely one of the best experiences I've had so far in Japan!

We only planned to pull the Odaiko for the first night, but it was such a thrill, we came back to do it again on the third night of the festival. One note about the pictures here- I didn't take my camera or phone with me in the parade because I was afraid to lose it, so most of the pictures I have of our participation were taken by Hide-san, our head instructor, who walked in front of the group with a megaphone slung over his shoulder, shouting directions and the festival chant "Yaaa yaaa dooooouuuu!"

Alex, Jackson, Stefan and I in our hanten (photo credit: Jackson's friend)

Drummers walk behind the Odaiko in the parade (photo credit: Hide-san)

Jackson's turn drumming on the Odaiko (photo credit: Hide-san)

Stefan's turn to yell "Yaaa Yaaa Doou" (photo credit: Hide-san)

While it was fun to pull the Odaiko down the actual parade route, it was an unexpected thrill to pull it back through the nearly empty streets of Hirosaki to the store house near the park. Each group in the parade takes a different route back to their home base, chanting and drumming on the way, so it's kind of like the parade dissolves back into the city, rather than stopping at the end of the official route.

Our group turned off Dotemachi street on to a part of my usual morning commute. Driving a car and "driving" a giant taiko drum are two very different ways to experience the streetscape! We also pulled the Odaiko through some narrow streets in Kajimachi, the nightlife district, and it was great to see shop staff and patrons spill out of the tiny bars and lean out of upstairs windows to cheer us on our way.

Night #2 - Kuroishi Neputa

On the second night of the festival week, I took a car full of JETs to Kuroishi to watch the night parade there. Our friend Kyoko has a barber shop in Kuroishi close to the start of the parade. She had advised us to try to come early so we could go check out the neputa (parade floats) all gathered in the staging area in the park near her shop.

Neputa staging area in Miyuki Park, with parade crew and spectators milling about

Neputa staging area in Miyuki Park

Neputa staging area in Miyuki Park

Neputa staging area in Miyuki Park

As the official start time for the parade approached, we headed off down the parade route to find a bit of curb to set up our "leisure sheet" (aka: a tarp) and get comfy.

Sitting in front of a flower shop enjoying the parade

In Kuroishi's Neputa parade, the large fan-shaped floats rolled by amidst a swirling crowd of smaller floats, dancers, drummers, and kids, and every now and then one or two marchers carrying huge paper fans would stop and wave a little cooling breeze onto the spectators. Whenever the parade paused for a moment, which it frequently did, the crews of the larger floats grabbed ropes attached to the corners and ran in a circle, causing the fan-shaped part of the float to spin like a top, showing the images on both sides to the spectators.

The parade starts - each neputa has a few riders up on top to yell at the crowd with a megaphone and also fold the top flaps down to fit under low wires

A battle scene is painted on the front, and on the back there is usually a pretty lady

This neputa is in the style of the ones in Aomori City- not fan-shaped, more sculptural, still a battle scene

Still got a pretty lady on the back

Cotton candy sunset as the parade goes on

Playing for applause as the neputa spins

A bubble machine used for great effect

Next up: more Neputa, Nebuta, and Tachineputa

Summer in Aomori: Fireworks, Lotus Ponds, and Yomiya

I kicked off my summer by going to Sendai. After that, the lineup of events leading up to the Neputa Festival launched into full swing. I've divided the summer activities into categories, which are roughly chronological, with some overlaps. (Note: I am writing this in mid-November, with a blanket on my lap and a heater at my back...)

花火大会 - Hanabi Taikai - Fireworks

Every summer, or so I'm told, Hirosaki has Hanabi Taikai, a big free fireworks display held to the west of the city. The fireworks are launched over a field in a bend of the Iwaki River, and a huge crowd of all ages spread their blankets out in the field to watch. Unlike in the US, where fireworks shows are usually under fifteen minutes start to finish, the hanabi taikai features five or six consecutive fireworks displays, each put on by a different company, with a few minutes' break in between.

A group of us biked out to a shopping plaza near the river, an adventure all of its own, and joined at least half of the city (and most of our students) walking out to the viewing area. There were plenty of food stalls and vendors selling toys and games for kids. The whole show lasted about two hours and was a pretty fun time.

Fireworks at the Hirosaki Hanabi Taikai

Later in the show, the fireworks were blurred by the smoke of earlier displays

よさこい - Hirosaki Yosakoi Festival

Yosakoi is a type of dance that originated in Kochi Prefecture in the early 1950s, and took the rest of the country by storm. People of all ages, from kindergarten kids to grandmas, belong to Yosakoi dance troupes and travel around the country dancing in festivals and special events. Hirosaki puts on a Yosakoi Street Festival at the end of June, with about 30 groups from Aomori and beyond dancing down Dotemachi Street.

Each dance troupe has at least one giant flag waving during their performance

The routine involves many costume changes, hand-held rattles called naruko, crazy hair and energetic dancing

Each group also has an announcer who gets up and chants, sings, and shouts during the routine; this group also had a guy wearing a mini-Neputa float on his head

We thought the crowd was leaving to go home, but they were actually heading out to watch the competition between all the flag-wavers on one of the wider streets nearby

This is a video of one of the Yosakoi troupes dancing (may not show properly on mobile browsers)

This is a video of the flag-waving competition (may not show properly on mobile browsers)

夜宮  - Yomiya - A summer of one-night festivals

A while ago, somebody mentioned that all the temples and shrines in Hirosaki would have a festival in the summer. I'm not sure how the topic came up, but I'm guessing it was sparked by discussion of when it might be possible to eat more torimochi, following the conclusion of Sakura Matsuri. Torimochi is a festival food consisting of alternating bite-sized pieces of fried chicken and fried mochi, drizzled with a sweet glaze. 

One day in late June, I was woken at 6am by two volleys of nearby cannonfire, or so it sounded. It seemed very close, and it occurred to me that I had been hearing the same sound, but further off in the distance, for a few days. My supervisor informed me that it was the signal that one of the shrines in the neighborhood would be having Yomiya, a one-night celebration, that night. Sure enough, at 5pm on the dot, I again heard the cannonfire or whatever it was, signaling the start of the festival. I didn't go investigate that night, but the following weekend I went to the Yomiya at Shinzan Jinja, near my friend's elementary school.

Festival-goers visit the food stalls on the street outside the shrine, in a light rain 

Lining up to pray at the shrine while a bunch of old guys sit inside drinking beer and watching

Stefan possibly misusing the shrine gate decorated with a wreath of greenery

After paying our respects at the shrine, we ate our way through the food stalls outside, indulging in fresh donuts, tortilla-wrapped hotdogs, my favorite ichigo ame (candied strawberries), karaage, and anything else that looked good.

I managed to find a copy of the Yomiya schedule for all the shrines in the area.

The 2016, or rather, Heisei 28 Yomiya schedule for the Hirosaki area.

I saw that Awashima Shrine, a few minutes' walk from my apartment, would have a Yomiya on July 7th (along with two other shrines elsewhere). We made a date to check it out.

Queuing to pay respects at Awashima Shrine, with the old folks inside watching again

The Yomiya at Awashima Shrine was pretty packed.

Fried food stall at the Yomiya (the torimochi skewers were on that empty tray)

More stalls at the Awashima Shrine Yomiya

"Yo-yo Tree" stall on the left selling Yo-yo balloons on a rubber band

Yomiya crew

On the handy schedule I downloaded, I saw that the biggest Yomiya in July would be on Sunday the 31st at Hirosaki Hachimangu Shrine, right next to the gym where we have our weekly taiko practice, also conveniently scheduled for Sundays. As I discovered in Sendai, Hachimangu is considered a guardian deity of the Tohoku region. We managed to swing through for about 45 minutes before practice started, when the stalls were opening for business and patrons were just starting to drift through.

Just getting started at the Hirosaki Hachimangu Yomiya

Lining up to pay respects (and buy some omamori) at Hirosaki Hachimangu Shrine

After practice ended at 8pm, the shop-lined street was full of families, students, noise and delicious grill smoke. We went back to eat more fried stuff on a stick, kakigori (shaved ice) and fresh donuts. I also picked up an assortment of sparklers to set off at home. Leading to:

線香花火 - Senko Hanabi - Sparklers

Actually, senko hanabi is the name of one type of Japanese sparkler, but summer is the time for any sort of hand-held firework. You can buy them at Yomiya, at the grocery store or konbini, and you can even get quite an effective "seven-star" edition from Daiso that will fire a sparkling rocket up to 60 feet away, into your own bedroom window if you're not careful... Not that I know anything about that...

Expecto Patronum! Michiko and Stefan

The classic senko hanabi sparkler

Post-Awashima Shrine Yomiya sparklers

Sparklers after Hirosaki Hachimangu Yomiya, before (accidentally) launching a rocket at my house

Lotus Ponds

When I arrived in Hirosaki in August of last year, my school kindly gave me a few days off during the summer break to get myself settled and acclimated. I used one of those days to ride the 100 yen bus to Hirosaki Park, and I visited the Botanical Gardens (mostly to soak up the shade since it was about 100 degrees in the sun). I encountered a lotus pond with six-foot-tall lotus stalks and a few tightly closed flower buds.

Last year's giant lotus stalks in the Hirosaki Park Botanical Gardens

This year my friend Yukako invited me to see the lotus pond at Saruka Jinja, famous in these parts for its summer blossoms. As summer got more and more busy, we managed to go twice- once just ahead of the full bloom, and once just after the peak.

The lotus pond at Saruka Jinja

Mama duck doesn't see what the big deal is, just get down here already

I also found another lotus pond in Hirosaki Park, on the other side of the Castle keep.

The lotus pond behind the castle

Mt. Iwaki in the summer haze of July

土用の丑の日 - Doyo no ushi no hi - The day for eating eel

For some very Japanese reasons that I can't begin to explain, Japanese people eat eel on a very particular day toward the end of July. It's supposed to be good for your health to eat eel in the dead heat of summer in Japan. In 2016, the day for eating eel, "doyo no ushi," was July 30th. Sarah and Stefan had noticed a fancy restaurant specializing in eel near our neighborhood park, so we walked over a few days ahead and saw that they had a poster outside about their special eel set meals for July 30th. Stefan made a reservation, and we got ourselves there in time to be early for our 2pm appointment.

We had to wait for a minute or two, then one of the servers led us through the mostly empty restaurant (it was a bit on the late side for lunch), to a hall in the back where the private dining rooms were. We were shown into what seemed to be the best private room in the house, with a tatami floor, sunken table, zabuton cushions, a scroll hanging in a tokonoma alcove, and fancy-looking vases and statues in glass cases. There was even a mock-jizaikagi, the hook to hang the kettle over the hearth in a traditional Japanese home, shaped like a fish, hanging over the table. And the glorious, glorious air conditioning. We all wanted to take up residence in that room.

Our private room for Doyo no Ushi

Stefan, Sarah and the jizaikagi fish

Sarah models the menu resplendent with eel

Fancy plates and statues and lamps...

Delicious unagi-don (eel on rice) set meal

It was a pretty great summer in Hirosaki this year. Here's a hint of what's up next:

Constructing the Neputa floats in Choshiro Park

Showing off another Neputa float near the station, a week before the festival